Florence Knapp and Brandon Jack on the power of a name
Florence Knapp's hugely popular debut novel The Names explores the power of a name. Starting in 1980s England, it's a sliding doors story about the seismic impacts of a woman's choice of name for her newborn son. Florence also talks about dealing with the unexpected success of her first book.
And something a bit different, a novel by former Aussie Rules Football player, Brandon Jack, who played for the Sydney Swans (finishing in 2017). Pissants tells the story of a ragtag group of fringe AFL players making bad choices and getting into trouble. Brandon talks about his shift from football to fiction, why nicknames are important for team spirit and having Helen Garner (Australian literary royalty) as a fan. Read this article for more background about the writing of Pissants.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
24 minutes ago
- ABC News
Poetry that pulses with power and purpose
Gamilaroi poet Luke Patterson debuts an explosive new poetry collection titled: A Savage pages burst with tenderness and defiance. Patterson views his poetry as an anti-venom for colonial Australia, where pot plants whisper of stolen land and love poems bloom as fierce as wattle. Awaye also honours the life and legacy of the trail blazing Uncle Noel Tovey, who passed away this week, aged 90. Uncle Noel has had a profound impact on Blak dance and theatre. A champion of Indigenous arts and gay rights. Uncle Noel became Australia's first Indigenous professional ballet dancer. His journey took him from the streets of Melbourne to London stages. He was a mentor to young artists and an advocate who turned his survival story into power and strength. The conversation is from the Awaye archives from 2003. The discussion references childhood sexual assault, racist language, and suicide. Plus for Word Up, Neenah Gray shares more of the Darumbal language.
News.com.au
35 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Moruya tips, inside mail and preview for Sunday, August 17, 2025
Progressive staying mare Think I Do has been given the proverbial 'Bart Cummings preparation' leading into Sunday's Lake Conjola Bowling Club Handicap (2010m) which is only fitting given her close connection to the Cups King. The JJR Racing-housed mare is by Cummings' dual Cox Plate winner So You Think out a mare named Karata. She (Karata) was the final foal delivered by Let's Elope, one of Cummings' 13 Melbourne Cup winners whose show reel also included the Caulfield Cup, Australian Cup and Mackinnon Stakes. Think I Do has been on an upward trajectory her whole racing life with each one of her six starts being a little, or in some cases, a lot better than the last. • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! So much so that the Barbara Joseph, Paul and Matt Jones-trained four-year-old is unlucky not to be on a hat-trick heading into Sunday's 10-furlong assignment having been beaten a nose prior to her commanding maiden win at Forbes on the Cup day undercard. 'She's got brothers and half-brothers running around over the hurdles in Victoria but she has always shown she has got a little bit more of speed about her but I always knew she would stay,'' co-trainer Paul Jones said. 'It was very good to see her put two really good runs together and I think if this track is going to be playing deep and wide, they are going to know she's in the race.' Team Joseph/Jones are taking another of their Canberra equine lodgers to Moruya this weekend, Graceful Ellen who, like her aforementioned stablemate, is a last-start winner. In Graceful Ellen's case, it was in a Class 2 at the Sapphire Coast where she burst clear of her five rivals to win by the best part of two lengths, prompting a nomination for Saturday's TAB Highway at Rosehill (which she was balloted out of). 'I think she has earnt her colours to have a go (but) she was one or two Benchmark points below making the field on what was obviously quite a strong Highway,'' Jones said. 'It was a very good win at the Sapphire Coast, in fact it was one of the better wins on the day, the way she ran up to them and ran away. 'She's always been a smart little filly who has shown us just enough and as she has got stronger, we're very happy with what he has done.' Graceful Ellen's current earnings top $60,000, or 10 times her purchase price at the 2023 Magic Millions Yearling Sale. 'This skinny little scrawny chestnut walked in with a neck on her like a giraffe,'' Jones recalled. 'I think they started the bidding off at $2000 and Mum (Barbara Joseph) put her hand up and it got knocked down to her for $6000.' Graceful Ellen was a member of the third and ultimately second to last crop of foals sired by the barnstorming sprinter Spieth. Her dam Hennessy Rock was a handy filly in her time, her career highlight coming at her third career start when she clocked in fourth in the Listed TRC Elwick Stakes in Hobart on the 2014 Tasmanian Derby day. â– â– â– â– â– MORUYA TIPS BEST BET Race 1 No.3: PERFORMING DIVA Hasn't run a bad race yet; this one looks like it is her reward for effort. NEXT BEST Race 5 No.12: THINK I DO So You Think granddaughter of Let's Elope who is crying out for the 2010m now. VALUE BET Race 4 No.1: BOBS BACK Should feel comfortable in this grade of race. Trialled well. QUADDIE Race 4: 1, 4, 5 Race 5: 3, 12 Race 6: 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 Race 7: 6, 7, 9 JOCKEY TO FOLLOW QUAYDE KROGH has enough horse power to figure in the Jockeys Challenge outcome. MORUYA INSIDE MAIL PERFORMING DIVA (3) has a second placing either side of two fourths, the last one was here at Moruya when she was first-up on the Heavy 8. The Pat Murphy-trained daughter of Breeders' Plate and Canonbury Stakes winner Performer kept to the task honourably that day. Drawn one so can expect her to be very prominent indeed throughout. WRITTEN BY LUCY (4) likewise is yet to run a bad race in her short career thus far. In fact, she has taken part in two incredibly strong maidens, both back in March. BET: PERFORMING DIVA to win, exacta 3 to beat 4. VERMICELLA (4) is a Gerry Harvey-owned and bred mare by Pierro from his own (great) St Kate female line. It has to be said that Joe Cleary has done an awesome job with this mare, a fact reflected in her record of four wins and three placings from nine runs. On top of that, her numbers at Moruya are fabulous. TOES IN THE WATER (1) has the highest benchmark rating of any horse racing at Moruya – 79. He is '889' coming into this but two were on the Kensington, the other one at Kembla. Going better than it looks on paper. BET: VERMICELLA to win. RACE 3: MAIDEN PLATE (1660m) FEEDBACK (4) is another Harvey/Cleary (and jockey Quayde Krogh) runner on the card. This one is a gelding by Kermadec whose last three, of a total of six career starts, are for Cleary and they are all thirds. What appeals most is the respective winners of those races – Sweet About Me, Brutal Eyes and Sawmill (here, on August 5). BRUME DE SOLIEL (16) has looked like a miler pretty much every one of his three starts this time in. He was $14 into $10 last start here, for good reason, and ran on especially well in that 1310m maiden. BET: FEEDBACK to win, Brume De Soliel each-way. BOBS BACK (1) is a Kerry Parker-trained son of Hallowed Crown who was unplaced in his four runs at his opening preparation from February to March but he clocked in '6544' across that time so was hard poor. In fact, to his credit, he got better with each run. He has clearly come back even better again judged on his narrow but impressive trial win at Kembla on Aug 8. Mitch Beer's blue blood KING NIC (4) won a heat that same day and bolted in actually. This is one horse who won't be a maiden for long! BET: BOBS BACK each-way, quinella 1,4 RACE 5: BENCHMARK 58 HANDICAP (2010m) THINK I DO (12) is an exciting and worthwhile 1600m/2000m, maybe more, prospect for the Joseph/Jones barn. First off, look at the breeding! She is by So You Think out of an Elvstroem daughter of Let's Elope! Think I Do is probably a bit unlucky not to be on a hat-track coming into this having been beaten a nose prior to what was a very decisive win at Forbes on Cup day. COSMOS FACTORY (3) was midfield in a Kembla 64 on July 26. He's drawn three with the claim. He'll run this trip right out. Goofinator is galloping towards a win. BET: THINK I DO to win, exacta 12 to beat 3, box trifecta 3,6,7,12, DD 1st Leg 12, 2nd Leg 9. HOLD (8) was scheduled to race at Kembla on Saturday but the meeting was washed out. The mere fact that trainer John Nisbet was going to take on provincial grade with the mare says a lot about how she must be going. She has a very, very good fresh record, all three wins have come first-up. Handles the soft/heavy. PRETTY SASSY (6) likewise was down to race at Kembla. Speaking of fresh records, Pretty Sassy is two from two first-up. Pleasurize meanwhile is two from two – period! BLUE BAYOU (9) wears the colours of his Sir Rupert Clarke-winning uncle Rebel Dane, aka the father of Golden Slipper winner, Fireburn. This Laurel Oak mare has finished runner-up at each of her two starts this preparation, one by less than a neck, the other by a nose. Important to note that both of them were at Moruya. You wouldn't see too many more emphatic wins than that of Graceful Ellen at the Sapphire Coast on July 27. BROOKLYN LIGHTS (7), HELLINDA (3) and BEAUTY DASH (10) all have claims.
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘It paid in the end': The family that bankrolled AC/DC – and still owns their catalogue
This story is part of the August 9 edition of Good Weekend. See all 13 stories. It's a 50-year showbiz relationship, as enduring as any of AC/DC's timeless hits, yet the bond between the band's founding brothers, Malcolm and Angus Young and the late music impresario, Ted Albert, who helped make them famous, seems destined to remain shrouded in mystery. Ahead of AC/DC's upcoming tour of Australia in November and December – the band sold 320,000 tickets on one day alone in June – the low-key, Sydney-based Albert family refuses, albeit politely, to discuss any of the Young brothers: neither Angus, now 70, nor Malcolm, who died in 2017, aged 64, nor their older brother, George, founder of The Easybeats, who died just three weeks before him at 70. This is despite the Youngs playing an intrinsic role in the Albert family's enormous impact on the Australian entertainment industry. Ted's great-grandfather, Swiss émigré Jacques Albert, went from selling watches and harmonicas in the 19th century to owning a media empire – originally called J Albert & Son, later becoming Albert Productions – that encompassed radio and television. Ultimately, it signed some of the biggest rock and pop acts to come out of Australia, including AC/DC in June 1974. Ted died young – of a heart attack in 1990 at the age of 53 – and in 2016 his family sold Albert Productions to the German music giant BMG. Despite exiting the recording industry, though, it retained ownership of its prize jewel: AC/DC's music catalogue, which includes, of course, everything the brothers ever wrote, including mega-hits T.N.T. (1975), Highway To Hell (1979) and You Shook Me All Night Long (1980). It ranks as one of the most valuable catalogues in the world, reported to be on par with that of British super-group Pink Floyd, which sold last year for $US400 million. The band's music still regularly features in movie soundtracks and commercials, generating substantial publishing fees. 'There's no doubt the AC/DC catalogue has been the Albert family's cash-cow for the past 50 years,' says music biographer Jeff Apter, who wrote Malcolm Young: The Man Who Made AC/DC. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Loading In 2010, journalist Jane Albert – Ted's niece – touched on the enduring relationship in her book House of Hits, revealing how Ted Albert bankrolled AC/DC for almost a decade before turning a profit. 'For him, it was a long-term investment,' Angus Young told her, 'but it paid in the end.' Today, the family's focus is the Ted Albert Foundation, which funds 'positive social outcomes through the power of music'.
